Montanari's passion for the nude bloomed in the early '80s, when a photography teacher, the esteemed Lisette Model, saw a self-portrait of Montanari wearing only the zebra-striped shadows of a venetian blind. Just separated from her then-husband, Montanari threw herself into photography, spending days on end photographing herself in the nude, and eventually seeking commissions. "I depend on people who come to me," she says, "I don't choose them. That's what interests me about my work."